incite wrote:My name is Nick, I live in Edgewater, work at Northwestern in Evanston, and I wouldn't mind having a foodie lunch buddy to accompany me to Edzo's or Joy Yee's. I've been a photographer for the last 7 years or so, and I love the artistry of food.

I would love to attend a restaurant like Next, L2O, Alinea, etc. but I'm a mid-20's gentleman with a fiance saving up for a wedding, and would not have a disposable $1,000.00 if my ticket number came up.

incite wrote:My name is Nick, I live in Edgewater, work at Northwestern in Evanston, and I wouldn't mind having a foodie lunch buddy to accompany me to Edzo's or Joy Yee's. I've been a photographer for the last 7 years or so, and I love the artistry of food.

I would love to attend a restaurant like Next, L2O, Alinea, etc. but I'm a mid-20's gentleman with a fiance saving up for a wedding, and would not have a disposable $1,000.00 if my ticket number came up.

I thought I was making a new thread and was a little timid in saying too much. That just went out the window.

So! Grew up in Skokie eating Herm's Palace, Renga-Tei and Pita Inn. Both my parents were working folk, so I spent my summers with my gypsy grandmother in Westchester where we frequented Bohemian restaurants and Portillos. At age 18, I moved to Rochester NY which is a foodie black hole - ate a Zweigle White Hot and knew I would be miserable. after 4 years of eating fancy Ruby Tuesdays and drunken Garbage Plates, I moved back home.

Started dating my theatre friend from high school in 2006 and we are now engaged to be married in July 2012. She's a foodie as well, so we get along swimmingly.

Check the subscribe-and-save program on Amazon. I buy the Sea's Gift brand in batches of 24 for about $16. Not sure how much TJs charges, but I know that it beats Whole Food's price. (And since TJ has a nasty habit of discontinuing products...)

I believe the Trader Joe's brand are about a dollar a pack. Not only are you saving me money, but you're also saving me the embarrassment of having the cashier ring out 24 individual packs.

Perhaps that's a slight exaggeration...we normally get about 16 or so.

Happy to help, internet best friend! Now, do double check the weight of the Sea's Gift vs. TJs. I've only glanced at the Trader Joe's packs, but something made me think they may be larger. (I'd estimate that the Sea's Gift version has about 8 sheets in it.

They really are addictive, aren't they? Amazon also have the sweet version, but I don't love it nearly as much.

Are you talking about the little packs of roasted seaweed rectangles? I haven't done a price comparison, but I know H-mart has a BIG selection of these. Big Multi-packs, too. Again, I've not done the price comparisons, I was just thinking that H-mart might be better price than tj or Sea Gift - plus it would give you an excuse to go to Hmart

We cannot be friends if you do not know the difference between Mayo and Miracle Whip.

seebee wrote:Are you talking about the little packs of roasted seaweed rectangles? I haven't done a price comparison, but I know H-mart has a BIG selection of these. Big Multi-packs, too. Again, I've not done the price comparisons, I was just thinking that H-mart might be better price than tj or Sea Gift - plus it would give you an excuse to go to Hmart

Yup, we're talking about one and the same. (Though I had some in Japan & did not like it one bit. I do think the Sea's Gift, etc., version have been edited for American tastes.) Still, always great to have another excuse to go to H-mart.

incite wrote:At age 18, I moved to Rochester NY which is a foodie black hole....

Hey there, buster! Some of us are actually FROM Rochester NY. Which, although LARGELY a foodie black hole is not COMPLETELY one. There ARE some places well worth visiting. On the other hand, if you don't like a good white hot...

incite wrote:At age 18, I moved to Rochester NY which is a foodie black hole....

Hey there, buster! Some of us are actually FROM Rochester NY. Which, although LARGELY a foodie black hole is not COMPLETELY one. There ARE some places well worth visiting. On the other hand, if you don't like a good white hot...

...maybe there's no hope.

Gypsy, I wrote that just to rev you up. My mother still lives there so I get out once a year or so. Do you have any recommendations for when I do? Perhaps you could PM me?

There is indeed such a thread and you can find it here. We're glad to have you with us and look forward to reading more of your contributions.

We can all understand financial constraints, but please don't think you need that kind of cash for Next (or even Alinea) or most places we discuss. At the time my wife and I were selecting our time slot for Next, we saw options as low at $70 per person...fwiw. Now that may still be steep for a lot of folks, but it's a lot closer to handle-able than $1000.

Good luck!

Agreed. Plus, maybe you get to use some of those wedding gifts to defray the cost.

How long have you been at Northwestern?

If you drive, or don't mind the longer walk, I like both Cross Rhodes & Piron Chocolates.

Welcome to my message! I am a lifetime resident of Pilsen and would love to share my culinary experiences from the neighborhood! I love the area so much I have volunteered my time to help with the restaurant tour, Buen Provecho! Pilsen. I have been volunteering with ESDC the agency that organizes this event and the Mole de Mayo festival!

I am truly a foodie and want to devote some time to writing about the food in Pilsen. I want to spend the next few weeks on LTH forum giving a little slice of my thinking on the restaurants of Pilsen! As you get to know me you will find that I am very opinionated about Pilsen restaurants. They are the heart of the cultural experience in Chicago, and Mexican food is among the best food in the world. And I am just an humble FAN!

I firmly believe you really miss something if you don’t come down to visit Pilsen. We have restaurants like the numerous taquerias like Los Comales to the restaurants like Mundial Cocina Mestiza that offer upscale Mexican fare. However, the Pilsen area is not just about Mexican food anymore. Have you tried the BBQ at Honky Tonk BBQor had a craft beer at Simone’s. There really is a lot to explore here in the Lower west side of the city. I would love any questions or comments or subjects that you would like to hear about.

I love LTH forum. I have sought out the opinions of other LTHers for dining often, but this is the first opportunity I’ve taken to have my voice heard. I hope I can provide you with an entertaining opinion.

They say everyone has one Great American Novel in them. I believe that everyone also has one great restaurant they can create! It must be true since so many people try to run successful restaurants. I have my great idea for a restaurant. Some day I’ll have the best restaurant in Pilsen and that is saying something!

I think you'll find that this group is very familiar with & fond of the Pilsen neighborhood. A search of this site on Google yielded over 23,000 mentions of the word "Pilsen", if that's any indication There are over 200 mentions of Honky Tonk BBQ and over 100 mentions of Simone's specifically.

However, I believe that your perspective will be most welcome & appreciated!

I just ask one favor: please don't make "Pilsen" bold, underlined, and red in all of your posts - I found it very challenging to read the rest of your post, as those red words stood out so much they kept pulling my eyes back to them at the expense of the words around them.

Before i introduce myself I would like to say thank you to the admin allowing me signup in this forum and give me permission to post on it.I am Bobby Didianna. Me and my partner Robert Didianna have a restaurant called Bacci Pizza. I am completely new to this forum. I am hereto communicate to make new friends with the members of this forum and i alsowould like to share my experiences with you all.

My name is Marcia. I registered here years ago but never posted. Still don't have anything to say but I had to reregister because I forgot my PW of course and my email address changed since then.

I grew up in the northern burbs and then lived in Evanston since forever--well, until I moved to Seattle 5 years ago. I still read here because as much as I like Seattle, Chicago will always be home and gratefully I still have ties there, so I return periodically.

One thing I learned that has nothing to do with food since I moved is that I have no sense of direction. Be grateful for the grid system. I never got lost in Chicago. The diagonal streets (Ogden, Lincoln, Milwaukee, etc--the streets that used to vex me) are child's play now.

Hi, my name is Steven and I'm a foodie. [Hi, Steven] I'm a regular visitor to Chicago (working in the Oak Brook area, sleeping in the Naperville area). I live outside of Boston and was raised in the suburbs of New York (so, I am, at heart, a displaced New Yorker).

I discovered LTH based upon a recommendation from a participant at CooksTalk Classic, which has its origins in a forum operated by the publishers of Fine Cooking magazine (so I like to cook and eat well).

Thanks for operating this site.

Without coffee, chocolate and beer, in that order, life as we know it would not be possible.

As a matter of fact, I do get into the city from time to time (you picked a good day to ask). I had a lovely dinner at Mextique a few weeks ago.

Last night I had dinner with a client and his wife at The Girl and The Goat (I made the reservation almost two months ago). It's my third Top Chef restaurant. I've had meals at Harold Dieterle's Perilla and at Tiffany Faison's Sweet Cheeks.

Dinner last night was great and I had excellent companionship - I was the only one with a food aversion worth mentioning (I can't stand even a hint of coconut in anything I eat).

Without coffee, chocolate and beer, in that order, life as we know it would not be possible.

Hello Everyone! I actually joined a few months ago and followed you more through a fellow user. Time to start keeping up with all things food on my own so I thought I'd introduce myself. I am Moxie - I live in the western burbs but am out and about all over. Love cooking and am learning to be more purposeful about it. Will be posting a plenty of pictures, I'm sure, because I also love taking pictures of food. And - I enjoy craft beer - so I will probably post pictures of those, too. Good to be among like minded people! Yay me! Moxie.

Hello, neatochick917 here! My love for food started when I was a kid. When I was 5, just like any other kid, I watched the morning kid’s shows on PBS. Some of my particular favorites being Mr. Roger’s and Sesame Street. No surprise there, right? Well, what I truly enjoyed most were the cooking shows that came on after the ones that were geared towards kids my age. Those were reruns of Julia Child’s, The French Chef and The Frugal Gourmet with Jeffrey L. Smith. I’d wait patiently for Mr. Roger’s to get finished so I could watch Julia lumber around the kitchen and create, what I thought to be, equally magnificent and gross dishes. This being the opinion of my five year old self, of course. Then she’d be followed by The Frugal Gourmet, which most often, I’d get so excited at this point that I’d enthusiastically invite the other members of my family to watch what I called, ‘the Full Grown Maid’. He was apparently my favorite. I’m not sure what about it him made the show so intriguing but I’m sure that it had something to do with his crazy, curly, white hair and the striped apron he wore to create seemingly delicious dishes.

This passion then progressed into me asking my incredibly wonderful mom if I could do what I called ‘experiments’ in the kitchen. What that actually meant was for me to take this giant metal mixing bowl we had along with flour and water and pretend I had a cooking show of my very own. Let me tell you, I created some of the MOST amazing dishes! As I got a little older, I made actual, edible treats like chocolate chip cookies and whole dinners for my family. It was at this point that I discovered why I loved to cook so much. It made the people in my life that I love very much happy. That made me happy.

been watching this site and other food porn sites for years, born in skokie 1963, lived in glenview, northbrook and lincolnshire til 1986 when florida became home aka north miami beach, then pembroke pines near ft laud then and still in palm beach gardens, enjoy good restaurant exploring and get my tips for them right here and enjoy being a part of lth, married with 3 kids and a thai food addict

phatphilskokie wrote:been watching this site and other food porn sites for years, born in skokie 1963, lived in glenview, northbrook and lincolnshire til 1986 when florida became home aka north miami beach, then pembroke pines near ft laud then and still in palm beach gardens, enjoy good restaurant exploring and get my tips for them right here and enjoy being a part of lth, married with 3 kids and a thai food addict

Welcome aboard, Phil.

=R=

There's a horse loose in a hospital -- JM

I am not interested in how I would evaluate the Springbank in a blind tasting. Every spirit has its story, and I include it in my evaluation, just as I do with human beings. --Thad Vogler